The Insane Root

In the Abarian Embassy in London, Isàdas Pacha lay sick unto death. He
was an old man, and upon several previous occasions when he had been
stricken by illness it was thought that he could not recover.
Nevertheless, when newspapers and Cabinets were speculating upon his
probable successor, he had invariably risen up from his bed and had
again handled the reins, continuing to transact the duties of
Ambassador to the Court of St James's entrusted to him by his Imperial
master.

He was greatly in the favour of his Emperor, and was, after his own
fashion, a power in the courts of Europe. Though it was said, and
indeed with truth, that most of the business of the Chancellery was
carried on by his clever, fascinating and ambitious first secretary,
Caspar Ruel Bey, it was the brain of Isàdas Pacha which inspired
despatches, the hand of Isàdas Pacha--that shrivelled, forceful hand--
which gave the last decisive touch to the helm.

Isàdas Pacha was old and had lived an unholy life. He had loved many
women--the prey of some, the tyrant of others--had drunk much wine,
had gambled and fought and rollicked, had nourished revenge upon the
fruit of diabolical knowledge, had strange byways of intrigue, vice
and of wisdom where was little good and much evil. He had, in fact, to
quote an austere London surgeon who attended him, violated every law
of health, morals and religion, and was a standing disproof of the
power of those laws. For his marvellous vitality and his commanding
intellect had brought him successfully through a varied career, to
what now-at its close, seemed the very zenith of influence and
popularity. Nor were the influence and popularity undeserved. He had
been a faithful servant to an effete and demoralised civilisation--a
state which from its geographical position was at that time one of the
chief factors in Christian and Mahometan policy. He had done his
country's work--not always righteous--in many lands, and had felt the
pulse-beats of many nations. He had the wile of the East and the
common sense of the West, and was consulted by both in hours of crisis
and difficulty. The decorations heaped upon him had been genuinely
won, and only a week before his illness, the last and crowning order
of merit---the highest gift in his sovereign's power to bestow--had
been sent him with an autograph letter from that sovereign, by whom he
was both loved and trusted. The ideal of an autocratic sovereignty was
the ideal to which Isàdas Pacha clung. It had ruled his actions; and'
the glittering jewel which represented it, was now placed by his
desire, at the foot of his bed, and solaced his dying hours. Thus, a
strong and lasting devotion had been inspired in him by the original
of an oil painting--the portrait of a man with regular, refined
features, dark haunting eyes, and an expression of the most profound
melancholy, the most utter satiety to be seen on human countenance--
which hung at the end of the long suite of reception rooms in the
Embassy, its frame surmounted by the jewelled and gilded insignia of
Eastern monarchy. This was the portrait of his most sacred Majesty,
Abdullulah Zobeir, Emperor of Abaria.

It was in obedience to this devotion that Isàdas Pacha, when taken ill
at a watering-place to which his doctors recommended him, had desired
that he should be brought back to London in order that he might die
under the Imperial flag.

The floated limply over the grey roof and straight unlovely walls of
the Embassy. There was scarcely a breath of wind in the heavy,
exhausted London atmosphere--the atmosphere of a London August.
Certainly it was only the first week in August and Parliament was not
up, and there was a stream of smart carriages drawing up in front of
the corner house of that dull, old--fashioned London square, one patch
of which had been for so long a piece of Abarian territory. From the
carriages tired footmen alighted, and cards were left and inquiries
were made. In some cases the answers to the inquiries were brought out
and repeated to beautifully-dressed ladies, past their youth maybe--
ladies whom presumably the Pacha had loved or admired. The Pacha was
witty and amusing, while his position was such that women still liked
to be admired, even loved, by him, though he was not very far from
eighty. In other instances the inquiries were evidently merely
perfunctory--official tributes to his diplomatic status.e